Wauchope family celebrates 150 years of jam-making at Glen Ewin Estate

THIS happy trio up to its elbows in lovely preserves can take a big spoonful of credit for getting one South Australian company out of a jam.

Those sticky figs are steeped in history, with the Wauchope family celebrating 150 years of their jam-making company, Glen Ewin Estate, at Houghton, after they rescued it from destitution in 1991.

It has been a case of "nursing it back to health and getting back to basics", says Bill Wauchope, whose wife Wendy, and their grandchildren, Louis and Zoe, had great fun stirring a birthday pot of the fruit grown on the rambling 170-year-old estate.

Glen Ewin Estate dates back to 1843 when George McEwin created the orchards and one of the earliest vineyards in SA.

However, winemaking ceased in 1891 because he had religious concerns regarding the "morality of the enterprise".

The canny Scot, couldn't abide fruit from the giant orchards going to waste, so concentrated on Glen Ewin Jams from 1862.

Mr Wauchope says new technology has improved the original system of boiling up fruit over a wood-fired cauldron, but it's still a labour of love, and now managed by his son under the Willabrand label.

"It nice to see this business and property, one of the oldest settlements in the state, is still in South Australian hands," he says.